Recently in Class Category

Enough, a new online project by Dean Spade and Tyrone Boucher:

The ubiquity of capitalism in the U.S. can limit our ability, even in radical communities, to conceptualize creative responses to oppression and injustice. This can manifest both in how we build movements (reproducing bureaucratic, hierarchical, business-type models; packaging and "selling" social justice work to foundations in exchange for grants), and in how we deal with personal finances in our own lives (defaulting to patterns like hoarding, excessive consumerism, and individualism in how we conceptualize our lives and futures and economic security).

We'd like to address some of the ways that class privilege and capitalist dynamics function even within communities and within the lives of individuals working to fight oppression and economic injustice. It can feel taboo to share details about things like income, inheritance, class background, debt, and spending. Silence and secrecy about money make it difficult for us to challenge ourselves and each other when classist dynamics arise. Social conditioning trains us to hoard money rather than share it and build community. We want to get people talking about building shared values and practices around wealth redistribution, because we think figuring out how much is enough, and when to give away money, are key under-discussed questions in anti-capitalist politics.

I know I just added them to my google reader. They also encourage submissions.

Via Feministe

Heads up, Minnesota feminists!

via Poor Magazine:

"I was a formally homeless Mother who once lived in an abandoned building". This was my introduction to Cheri Honkala, Executive Director of the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC), a coalition of organizations from across the country united in the mission to "abolish poverty everywhere and forever".

As Cheri's words came through the phone I felt an instant connection to her. Having grown up with a Mother battling addiction - evictions, hunger and instability were my constant companions.

Cheri and the PPEHRC foster that same connection in poor people across color lines and across the country. She has been organizing with other poor folks for the last twenty-five years, and on September 2nd, the second day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul Minnesota, over a year of Cheri's full time efforts will come to fruition as the PPEHRC embarks on "The March For Our Lives", what will be one of the largest poor peoples marches ever to take place.

The March for Our Lives schedule is here.

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign also has blog, where they're chronicling the process of putting together this mega-march. Check it out.

Jack has a great post up at AngryBrownButch (and Feministe) about a new Demos report on the instability of the Black and Latino middle class. Jack shares some really interesting insights from childhood, and it inspired me to share some of my own thoughts.

From the report:

African-American and Latino families have more difficulty moving into the middle class, and families that do enter the middle class are less secure and at higher risk than the middle class as a whole. Overall, more African-American and Latino middle-class families are at risk of falling out of the middle class than are secure. This is in sharp contrast to the overall middle class, in which 31 percent are secure and 21 percent are at risk.

My parents are Cuban exiles, who immigrated here in the 60s shortly after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba. The reason why class has such different implications for immigrant families in the US is because they bring their class histories with them from their countries of origin.

Some vintage sexist, classist advertising:

Because we all know that being female "warrants immaculacy under any and all conditions." That includes during your period, ladies.

Yvette Bello joined Latino Community Services (LCS) in June 2005 and is currently serving as the Executive Director. Based in Hartford, Conn., LCS works to reduce the further spread of HIV/AIDS among the Latino community and other populations at risk, and improve the quality of life of individuals affected by HIV/AIDS.

Yvette also serves on the board of the Medical Interpreting Association of Connecticut, The Ryan White Latino Caucus, the Connecticut Association for Nonprofits board and the Mayor's Commission on AIDS.

Here's Yvette...

Sandy Shin is program coordinator at Breakthrough USA. Breakthrough is an international human rights organization that uses media, education and pop culture to promote values of dignity, equality and justice. It has two offices, one in NYC and one in New Delhi, India.

Sandy Shin has a Masters in Human Rights from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies and Sociology from the University of Albany. She was the Legal Advocate Project Director at the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault where she coordinated statewide trainings and provided constituents and the general public with services. Sandy has also been involved with community-driven social movements led by local activists employing anti-racism, anti-war ideologies.

Here's Sandy...

To update from my post on Tuesday about the demolition of four housing projects in New Orleans, activists (including my homies at Ruckus--raise the roof!) yesterday stopped the bulldozers with a 30 person blockade.

via AP.

Protesters wielding bullhorns and shouting "housing is a human right" stopped demolition at a massive public housing complex Wednesday in this hurricane-ravaged city in dire need of homes for the poor.

More than 30 protesters blocked an excavator from entering the fenced-off area of the B.W. Cooper complex. It was the first of what likely will be many standoffs between protesters and demolition crews that are tearing down hundreds of barracks-style buildings so they can be replaced with mixed-income neighborhoods.

Contributed by Miriam Pérez

The NYTimes Style section had an article yesterday about "baby mama gifts," "baby baubles" and so-called "push presents." These refer to gifts given to women shortly after giving birth, as a reward for enduring pregnancy and childbirth. The author makes it seem like this is a trend sweeping the nation, in addition to it being a throw back "from the time cavemen brought trinkets to their wives." The article starts with out with a story of a woman presented diamond earrings by her husband in the delivery room after 17 hours of labor. It continues through the stories of women who received any number of gifts: rings, watches, bracelets, even a hot tub.

"It's more and more an expectation of moms these days that they deserve something for bearing the burden for nine months, getting sick, ruining their body," said Linda Murray, executive editor of BabyCenter.com.

The articles about women's issues from the NYTimes never cease to amaze me. Not only is there no mention of how these types of "baby mama gifts" can only really be a phenomenon of the upper middle class (who else, upon the arrival of a new baby and the impending medical bills of a delivery, could afford to buy diamond earrings), it continues to play into gender stereotypes about women and what kind of gifts will make them happy (diamonds are a girl's best friend right?). Also, pregnancy and childbirth is not a "burden" for all women--for many it's a really exciting and joyful time.

The interesting thing about this trend is its connection to the concept of valuing women's work. If pregnancy and childbirth has value, should women be compensated for the time and effort that they are putting into childbearing? If so, what kind of compensation would be fair? Conversations about paying women to serve as surrogate mothers have stirred up these conversations, and some states want to make it illegal to compensate women for more than their medical expenses during surrogacy arrangements. Placing value on women's work (in the home, rearing children, etc) is a feminist dialogue that has been going on for decades, but this kind of materialistic compensation definitely doesn't sit well with me. How about we think of more creative and beneficial ways honor the work of motherhood.

"This isn't the time to give a $200 piece of jewelry," said Rhonda Grote, president of ThinkThoughtful.com, an online gift consulting company in Bradenton, Fla. "I do not think that because a woman has had a baby she requires a Tiffany & Company item. She requires help, love and emotional support."

Bush's proposed 2008 spending on the Women, Infants and Children program (which provides food vouchers to low-income women and their children up to age 5) would leave roughly half a million people in the lurch. The price of food and milk has soared, but Bush's budget isn't keeping pace.

Doug Greenaway, executive director of the National WIC Association, which represents state and local agencies, said states probably would deter new applicants and cut new mothers, rather than pregnant women and children.

"Once the word gets out on the street that the program is in some kind of funding jeopardy, people will say, 'Wow, there isn't an opportunity for me to participate,' " Greenaway said. "It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Depressing.

Reader Deanna sent us a copy of this letter she wrote to Safeway about her experience buying groceries there with WIC (Women, Infants and Children) checks. I'll let her speak for herself:

I am a mother of two children, a full time student and full supporter of my family and because of that I have been on WIC to help with groceries. I have been on WIC for about 5 years now and have always gone to Safeway to purchase my items. I have run into amazing checkers that have been courteous and kind every time, but I have also had my share of checkers that seem outright annoyed with me due to having WIC and because it takes a little longer process to go through with my checks.

I have dealt with these rude people and have talked to managers, but I have never felt so hurt and embarrassed to be on WIC as I had on the day I showed up to your California store Wednesday, November 7, 2007. I had picked up my items and went to check out. I first noticed the bagger that just finished the person ahead of me and as soon as he saw me pull out my WIC checks, he left. I let it go until I approached the checker let him know that I had WIC. Keep in mind that because I know it is a longer process to go through, I make sure that all my items are in order and just try to do my best to speed up the process for you guys and the people in line behind me.

If you read the news you already know about the housing crisis and the subprime lending bubble that is threatening to burst. You know the whole lending money that doesn't exist to people that can't afford to buy a house. The MSM is all over this issue, but has overlooked one aspect of it, which is that the highest concentration of these loans goes to low-income, working class, communities of color, and thusly continuing a resource disparity.

According to the NYT and common sense, subprime lending occurs at a higher rate in the black and Latino community.

Lenders say that in general higher rates are justified to account for the bigger risks posed by borrowers who have a poor record at paying bills on time and defaulting on debts. And a recent Federal Reserve study noted that neighborhoods where people tend to have lower credit scores also tend to a greater concentration of high-cost loans.

The study suggests that the concentration of high-cost loans is not caused by an area’s racial makeup, though there is a correlation, said Jay Brinkmann, vice president for research and economics at the Mortgage Bankers Association.

But the Fed study also suggests that a big part of the reason may have to do with the lenders that minority borrowers do business with. The biggest home lenders in minority neighborhoods are mortgage companies that provide only subprime loans, not full-service banks that do a range of lending.

Ultimately, if you are poor or have bad credit, a subprime loan looks good to you. You sign at an interest rate that is too low to beat and then within months your interest rate goes up, sometimes 3-fold. This has led to forbearance or delinquency on loans and an increase in forclosures on homes. This is not only bad for the economy, but critical in maintaining an economic divide along racial lines. The folks impacted the most are the ones rarely discussed in the coverage of this issue. People of color, women of color and poor people are among the most affected by the inadequacy of subprime lending. It also makes their credit that much worse than it already was before.

If you are interested in the lack of media coverage of race and it's relationship to development, housing and gentrification, check out my co-worker Karlos's blogs and the current campaign my organization is working on around the media rights of communities being displaced by unjust economic policies. We have also put out a content analysis looking at the lack of coverage around displacement in Bay Area news outlets.

(Sorry for the reposts, formatting was funky.)

I'm in (currently) cloudy Durham, North Carolina today for a conference called "Why We Can’t Wait: Reversing the Retreat on Civil Rights" from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund and the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights. Great, and packed agenda for the next two days. I'll keep you updated. One of this morning's sessions will feature Lilly Ledbetter, from Supreme Court case Ledbetter v. Goodyear.

According to a new study, done by researchers at Wayne State and University of Michigan, black women are three times less likely to receive chemotherapy and five times less likely to receive Tamoxifen (a drug used to help treat breast cancer) than their white counterparts.

The study examined medical records from 651 women diagnosed with breast cancer at a major university hospital and cancer center in Detroit from 1990 to 1996. Of the women, 242 were white and 388 were black.

Previous studies had also shown differences in treatment rates between blacks and whites, but discerning the reasons for the differences was often difficult.

Despite previous studies having found difference in the types of cancer that black women get verse white women, it is clear that it is cultural and racial factors that motivate the difference between why white women get the treatment they need more than black women do.

Most experts were not surprised by the results of the study, but stated that figuring out why the differences existed would be difficult.

"It is sometimes very difficult to determine whether disparities are due to race or other factors," said Moy. "But in my opinion, race is a very important factor to consider."

"It is probably multifactorial," said Dr. Herbert Smitherman Jr., assistant dean of community and urban health at the Wayne State School of Medicine in Detroit. "The choices that people make are clearly a composite expression of their social and cultural circumstances, their conditions of living and the conditions of their community."

Finally, some findings that makes sense! The way you relate to you doctor is in fact different based on your cultural background. If you are distrusting of medical institutions, you may not feel comfortable demanding what you need, or engaging in a way that can fully serve you.

via ABCNews.

Sol Mills does corporate social responsibility for a living, she works for CSCC. Originally named Cal Safety Compliance Corporation, it pioneered the concept of safety compliance inspections in the California apparel community. The company grew and changed its name to CSCC. Today CSCC provides corporate social responsibility consulting services to a variety of industries around the world, including garments and textiles, home furnishings, hard-lines, technology, cosmetics, toys, food processing, and agriculture.

Just to make sure, the following responses represent only the personal opinions of Ms. Mills and not of CSCC, the company.

Here's Sol...

A judge ruled today that the new Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Illinois, won't be allowed to open. The court sided with the city attorney, who argued PP violated land use and permit regulations -- and that this supposedly isn't about abortion. (Yeah, right.) PP lawyers responded, "We wouldn't be here if this was a foot care clinic."

It's bad news in the short term, but legal precedent appears to side with us on this one. In a nearly identical case (PDF) out of New Hampshire in 2001, the court came down in favor of Planned Parenthood.

At today's hearing the city attorney also said, "The city of Aurora's image is important." Which, I think, is so revealing -- I'm struck by the class angle to all of this. The new clinic is "tucked between a supermarket, a Blockbuster Video, and a cluster of upscale homes" in the suburbs. It's clear that this is not just about opposing abortions in general. It's that some residents don't like the idea of abortion (and contraception) being available down the street from their McMansions. It's the attitude that abortion is an icky thing, best left to the seedy parts of town. I know the serious anti-choice crazies are going to come protest no matter what, but I really wonder if there would be any local opposition to this clinic if it was opening between a liquor store and a Popeye's on a strip in the bad part of town. My guess is no.

It's also curious to watch anti-choicers decry the fact that the new Planned Parenthood clinic is a $7.5 million, state-of-the-art facility. Because they're used to portraying abortion clinics as dilapidated and riddled with health-code violations. This new clinic clearly conflicts with that stereotype. They're going so far as to call the new clinic the "Abortion Fortress." (I prefer "Contraception Fortress" or "Pap Smear Fortress," thankyouverymuch.) Of course, they fail to acknowledge that the reason for the fortress-like facade is the so-called pro-lifers' tendency to lash out violently at women's health care providers. Ahem.

And speaking of hardcore forced-pregnancy activists, Eric Scheidler responded to today's ruling with some serious co-opting of pro-choice language, calling the decision "a great victory for choice -- freedom of choice for the people of Aurora to determine their own destiny." Yeah, people of Aurora who don't have uteruses.

More to come as the story develops...

Via reader Wyndi comes this truly gross NPR piece about how the wealthy are apparently breeding like crazy, in a trend dubbed (seriously) "competitive birthing." One mother actually says, "Baby number 4 has become the new must-have accessory."

Given the incredibly high cost of raising children these days -- with housing, child care, camps, clothing, and college tuition -- big families are apparently now a status symbol. A lot of the NPR story is anecdotal, but the reporter does talk to a demographics analyst, who says that census data shows the number of high-income families having three or four kids has shot up 30 percent in the last 10 years. "It's an unprecedented jump, and completely counter to 100 years of history," he says.

I feel like the kids-as-status-symbol story bubbles up occasionally. But what's new here, if you take the NPR reporter's word for it, is that having lotsa babies has become a way for super-educated moms who have left the workforce to "justify" their choice to opt out.

In other words, the more kids, the more comfortable these women seem with their stay-at-home status. One mom explains, "I know in some sense I feel more validated to say I'm a mother of four. Of course I'm not working now! What are you thinking? How could i possibly do anything else? This is a full-time job." Another says that having more kids "gets you a lot more recognition for a notoriously thankless job."

I have no idea how widespread this "trend" really is. But it doesn't seem completely far-fetched to me that women who used to be career-driven would want to direct their competitive energies somewhere -- and for some women, that's become a quest to be the best mom. ("Best" in this case, of course, equals "most kids.") Says one woman, "All that drive gets channeled into the children when they quit their job."

It's also easy to see that a formerly successful businesswoman would feel pressured to ensure that anyone could tell, just by looking at the size of her brood, that there's no way she could have continued to work outside the home. It's as if more babies are a defense mechanism -- not only against the raised eyebrows and judgments of women who stayed in the workforce, but also against any doubts these wealthy breeders may themselves harbor about their decision to opt out.

A recent study found that women are less likely to ask for higher salaries because when they do the social costs are far greater than when men ask for raises. You know the usual--I don't want to work with an aggressive, ball-busting bitch.

The study first done by a professor, who noticed that women Ph.d candidates were less likely to be teaching classes than men, decided to inquire.

When Babcock took the complaint to her boss, she learned there was a very simple explanation: "The dean said each of the guys had come to him and said, 'I want to teach a course,' and none of the women had done that," she said. "The female students had expected someone to send around an e-mail saying, 'Who wants to teach?' " The incident prompted Babcock to start systematically studying gender differences when it comes to asking for pay raises, resources or promotions. And what she found was that men and women are indeed often different when it comes to opening negotiations.

These differences, Babcock and other researchers have concluded, may partially explain the persistent gender gap in salaries, as well as other disparities in how people rise to the top of organizations. Women working full time earn about 77 percent of the salaries of men working full time, Babcock said. That figure does not take differing professions and educational levels into account, but when those and other factors are controlled for, women who work full time and have never taken time off to have children earn about 11 percent less than men with equivalent education and experience.

The studies done were all really interesting as were the conclusions.

"What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not."

They luckily moved past the tired and archaic, 'women are genetically inferior' bull, and looked at reasons outside of just blaming women for not being aggressive enough in demanding salaries. They found that there are clear social ramifications for women to ask for raises. It is dangerous for them to do so as they will hurt their reputation and potentially hurt their work environment.

Furthermore, I think that women are so used to working twice as hard as men, they may not always think they can get a raise. They have probably internalized the message that they are lucky they got the job in the first place. Naturally you can't totally generalize, but in a lot of cases, it is not that women don't believe they deserve it, or they are afraid of being perceived as a bitch, they just don't believe they will actually get it.

The reality is, women do the majority of work, in non-profits, in education, in government jobs, in corporations, in health care and in universities and men make the majority of the money. Still. Today.

Maybe that is why women don't ask for raises. When was the last time you asked for a raise? And I know damn well you deserve it.

via MSNBC.

The Observer had a piece yesterday on the media's obsession with the "Bad Girls of Hollywood," and questions why everyone seems to get off on watching these irritating rich, white women get in trouble.

While an obvious answer to this is that it's entertaining to see these overly privileged bad gals like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan who think they can get away with anything not only be treated as criminals just as any one of us would, but also have overwhelming flaws and personal problems. (In other words, rich life ain't all that grand.)

But is there more to it? And what is so appealing about famous women's demise rather than the lads? 'We have had years of young male stars running amok. It is now so much more fun for the public to see beautiful young women being hauled off to jail,' said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, New York state.

Is this saying something bigger about our culture? Why is it so much fun to watch "beautiful women" be imprisoned--or drug-addicted or clearly sick with eating disorders? And the comparison of these women's behavior with "Girls Gone Wild" is irksome as well; it's almost being posed as some kind of fetish. And who are we blaming?

To put it simply: is this a feminist issue?

Mattilda, a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore, is the author of a novel, Pulling Taffy, and the editor of three nonfiction anthologies: That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation; Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving; and Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients. She is at it again with her latest anthology, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity.

I caught up with Mattilda over email. Here's Mattilda...

Originally posted at Racewire.

These pictures are too much for me.

Talk about the wedding industrial complex has been all over the place and I like it. But the conversation of race and culture has been left out of the larger discussion. How does capitalism intersect with wedding rituals in cultures other than mainstream white culture? Looking through the wedding section of Nirali has me perplexed (and cracking up) thinking about South Asian weddings in the US and how they typify this notion of the "wedding industrial complex". I have been to many and at this point I have just stopped going. I am 29 and don't plan on getting married. In fact I vehemently oppose getting married, and really can't afford to fly all over the country for a ritual I have deep problems with.

The weddings that I have seen and many of the weddings characterized in Nirali, don't really seem like weddings that are about love and romance. They seem more like business mergers and marketing ploys. Some weddings even get straight to the point and ask that you don't bring boxed gifts, just a check. Nothing says love like having all your friends give you a few thousand dollars. And clearly love can only *really* happen if you spend 70K and have 500 of your closest friends present.

Weddings in India are huge as well, but in the US they are huge, elaborate, cheesy and cost a small fortune. It has become the norm in the middle class South Asian community to have a huge wedding and spend a ton of money whether you have it or not. It is a new way to become American in an Indian way. For example, "something old, something new, " is not a South Asian tradition! That is the placement of US romantic fetish marketing within South Asian chic. Romantic heterosexuality, having money and raising a normal family have become encoded in the "becoming" process for second generation South Asian Indians. And since being American seems to be all about capitalist consumption they may almost succeed, except for that post 9/11 'you look like a terrorist snag.' (Which may be the fear that exaggerates it in the first place, but let me not get ahead of myself.).

It is so lame. Neela at Hyphen delves deeper.

Thoughts?

Well this is just lovely. What's the best advice that Marlys Harris, Senior Editor of Money Magazine, has for women? "Snag" yourself a "Richie Rich."

True, it's not politically correct to go hunting for a marital meal ticket (or for that matter, to write about it). But just for a moment imagine the life that could be yours if you did.

Forget the fabulous baubles, designer clothing, cutting-edge electronics and palatial mansions that your golden goose - uh, spouse - might heap upon you.

Consider the more pragmatic bonuses of the good life. No more scrimping and scraping to make your annual Roth IRA contribution. No more working until you drop to ensure a comfortable retirement. And no more worries about where your children will get into college (or how to pay for it).

That's of course until you're served with divorce papers and find yourself with no job, no work history and...well, generally just fucked.

But why encourage women to seek out higher education or give them advice on finding high-paying jobs when you can just recommend marrying a billionaire? But Harris does say you should get a degree and work on your smarts--just not for silly things like success or personal fulfillment.

To worm your way into a billionaire's business, and eventually his heart, you need the right career. An M.B.A. will give you the most flexibility.

...Ultrarich men once gravitated toward women with the showiest plumage - or plastic surgery. That has changed, says Richard Conniff, author of The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide.

"Arm candy is now seen as déclassé," he notes. These days, the more prestigious your credentials and the brainier you are, the better.

Amazing how an article about money can be so devoid of any class.

Photo by Niesha Studio, copyright 2006.

Audacia Ray is an executive editor of $pread, a magazine by and for sex workers, and is a contributor to the porn blog Fleshbot. She is also the director/producer of a bisexual feature adult film, The Bi Apple and head of her blog, WakingVixen.com. Audacia describes herself as "a sex nerd in both bookish and salacious ways."

Here's Audacia...

Queercents, founded and headed up by Nina Smith, is a personal finance blog serving the LGBT community. Launched in April 2006, Queercents is produced by a variety of writers, including Nina.

Nina has a strong background in finances and financial planning. By day she sells software and conducts her own real estate investments--fixing and selling properties for hefty profits--and by night she runs Queercents. Nina started blogging because she was looking for a creative outlet in her life.

Here's Nina...

Oh, how I hate these.

The title deceived me into thinking this piece is going to be a critique of the wedding industry, yet ended up being anything but.

Apparently in our “post-feminist� world, women aren’t giving up their identity by having a traditional wedding, but are in fact demonstrating their wealth and independence.

While I obviously agree with the contention that wedding culture is obsessed with consumerism, the article is saying that this somehow negates the belief that it’s a sexist industry. Rebecca Mead’s argues this in her book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding.

Getting married used to mark the bride's transition from the parental home to the marital home; from adolescence to adulthood. But today, brides are no longer demure virgins in white lace quivering at the altar; rather, they are professional, self-supporting 30-somethings - more often than not masterminding the operation.

...this fairytale fantasy doesn't make a wedding anti-feminist, says Mead. On the contrary: ‘This is the moment where women can enact this Cinderella fantasy - but it is a safe enactment,’ says Mead, ‘You can look like a virgin princess, but no one expects you to be a virgin, and the next day you can go back to being your strong, liberated self.’ She argues that the modern wedding is not a repudiation of feminism, but partly a result of it.

But why would you want to look like a virgin princess? Shouldn't we be talking about why that's still appealing to people rather than welcoming it with open arms?

I’m not trying to knock on people who want to have a traditional wedding, wear the white dress and even spend a lot of money on it, but to not only downplay the history of a sexist ritual (the bride’s “transition� should actually be "ownership") but say feminism is partly behind the consumerist-driven wedding industry because women are now capable of being self-sufficient?? Please.

Let's also not forget that not all women make enough money (or have the "right" partner, for that matter) to afford the fairy tale wedding. All this looks like to me is an extravagant way of telling women that the more they spend on their weddings, the more empowered they are. Blegh.

From left to right: Sharon Kedar and Manisha Thakor.

Sharon Kedar and Manisha Thakor both have extensive experience in the financial services industry. At various points of their careers they have each worked as financial analysts, portfolio managers, and client servicing/marketing executives for leading investment management firms with billions of dollars in assets under management. Both Manisha and Sharon earned MBA degrees from Harvard Business School and are Chartered Financial Analyst (“CFA�) charterholders.

Manish and Sharon dedicate their newly released book, On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl's Guide to Personal Finance to all women.

Here's Manisha and Sharon...

This post by Wendy Muse on Racialicious just about sums up (really well) what I have been feeling about the hipsters all up in "our hoodz stealin all our fashionz." I also feel old as I wore door knockers the first time around (NY in the 80's) eeek.

Muse is discussing all her personal negotiations and some of the political stakes involved with "ghetto chic." She says,

For one, it’s a matter of nomenclature. The term “ghetto� is evocative of “negative� images (poverty, housing projects, crime, drug use, lack of education), and remains racialized by the media. Ghettoes and poverty are typically associated with blacks and Latinos, even though as a result of the racial demographics of the United States, there are technically more poor whites. According to a U.S. Census Bureau Press Release from 2003, though “non-Hispanic whites had a lower poverty rate than other racial groups, [they] accounted for 44 percent of the people in poverty,� which makes me wonder why whites are virtually ignored in discussions of class and blacks and Latinos are always assumed to make up the majority of the poor population in this country. . . but that’s another article.

A few months ago I was sitting in a coffee shop in my neighborhood, a coffee shop I can no longer go to as I may fight somebody, and this white "hipster" boy sat down across from me wearing a red bandana tied on the front of his head, Tupac style. That's right, he was "GANGSTA." I am not laughing. I shot him the nastiest look and freaked him out so he didn't want to share the table with me, but I was raging inside.

I worked in the schools in and around San Francisco's Mission District for about 5 years and am very familiar with the problems that are tearing our schools apart and our communities. Our kids didn't wear red. And I thought about how this kid, moved into the Mission and was just walking around wearing a flag, like he is on some shit. I thought that god forbid if he got shot (which is highly unlikely, I don't want to further sensationalize gang violence the way the media does) how the media would cover it. They wouldn't say anything about his ignorance of any of the local politics or any of the racist ways that these people just move on in and visually violate these communities. To move into a community, uninformed, taking from it, not giving back and flaunting your expensive Ipod and "ghetto chic" accessories, is a form of violence.

I may be sounding like a hater, and maybe I am just too old to get it, but I AM FED UP WITH THESE KIDS. I hate Vice Magazine and I hate this attitude that pretty much says, "I am so passed racist, I can act like this." Wake up asshole, look around you, you are part of the problem.

This is much less articulate than Wendy's post, lol. I wrote about this a few years ago, when I had heard about the "Kill Whitey," parties in Brooklyn. I had hoped that the trend was dying out, but I was oh so wrong. I am so moving back to Oakland (although I hear they are invading there as well).

Martha Diaz is the president of The Hip-Hop Association, and producer of the H2O International Film Festival and Hip-Hop Education Summit, amongst many other projects. An educator, organizer and filmmaker, her impact in hip hop can be traced to her early days as a young and aspiring production assistant for the late Ted Demme, the groundbreaking producer and director behind "Yo! MTV Raps. "

The H2O International Film Festival is taking place May 31-June 15, 2007 in New York City and its theme is "The World Is Yours?" It “highlights the Hip-Hop community of the early/mid 90’s; a time when youth in the community began demanding money, power, and respect.�

I caught up with Martha over email. Here's Martha...

The front page (and most emailed) article of the Times yesterday was titled, “For Girls, It’s be Yourselves, and Be Perfect Too.� I was really looking forward to reading the piece but will admit I ended up a bit disappointed.

The article began a discussion of what female teens endure in terms of the pressure not only to be pretty and popular, but also to get into the best school, have the best resume, be a part of most of the school clubs, etc. But as the piece continued, I found that the article was focused more narrowly on privileged population of girls at one of the best high schools in the country and their pressure to get into an Ivy League college. One small example:

High-priced SAT prep has become almost routine at schools like Newton North. Not to hire the extra help is practically an act of rebellion.

Now that’s tough. I personally felt really fortunate to have the opportunity to take courses at Kaplan when I was in high school. Don’t get me wrong; going to a “specialized� high school in NYC definitely came with a lot of academic pressure, and I don’t doubt that these girls endure this as well as overall pressure from everyone to establish themselves as successful young women in the world. At the same time, I find it interesting that an article that really just boils down to a few rich girls’ experiences of applying to Ivy League colleges would attract so much attention. There also seemed to be a lack of discussion on the difference between male teens’ experiences and these young women, besides their expensive fashion sense, of course.

With television and pop culture becoming so engrossed with America’s rich (ex. Laguna Beach, Paris Hilton, etc.), I’d personally prefer not to see the same obsession with the dramatic and sooo stressful lives of the upper class leaking into mainstream news as well. We have bigger stories to cover.

UPDATE: What's Good for Girls has more.

Kerrita McClaughlyn (left) and colleagues at the International Diabetes Federation’s 19th World Diabetes Congress in Cape Town, South Africa in December 2006.

Kerrita McClaughlyn is the media relations coordinator of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) based in Brussels, Belgium. For over 50 years, IDF has been at the forefront of global diabetes advocacy. The Federation is committed to raising global awareness of diabetes, promoting adequate diabetes care and prevention, and encouraging activities towards finding a cure for the different types of diabetes that many people are not aware of.

Kerrita answered my questions over email. Here’s Kerrita…

Check out Feministe's Jill's HuffPo piece on the proposed bill in Texas that would offer young women $500 (essentially $.07 per hour) to give their babies up for adoption instead of having abortions.

On March 10th, HBO will premiere a film, Life Support, starring Queen Latifah, about a HIV-positive black woman from a low-income community in Brooklyn who becomes an AIDS activist.

As someone who works for an organization in Bedford Stuyvesant that educates girls about HIV prevention, which is the neighborhood that partly inspired the director for this film (the film is based on his sister’s life), it’s great to see the HIV/AIDS crisis in these communities brought to light. (Not to mention with a female protagonist.)

One hope I have is that the film touches not only on the struggle the main character goes through but the larger reasons behind why HIV/AIDS is so prevalent in these communities. It’s seeming to be pitched as a story of redemption, of choices this woman made and how she ended up giving back to her community; I just hope that the lack of choices she had, particularly as a woman, are exposed as well.

Then again, I doubt the movie (nor Latifah) will disappoint me.

Suburban housewives dancing on poles! Everybody panic! What has the world come too?

Pole dancing, once exclusively the province of exotic dancers, has flared up as a much-hyped Hollywood exercise craze, and has seeped into the collective unconscious through shows like “The Sopranos� and “Desperate Housewives.� A variant called motorized pole dancing, which occurs in stretch limos, has raised eyebrows as far away as Britain, where some female university students pole-danced as a fund-raiser for testicular cancer. And mini-poles have even been spotted as dance props at over-the-top bat mitzvah parties in suburban precincts.

Now the pole — think ballet barre turned vertical — is the new star at racier versions of Tupperware parties in well-heeled (if high-heeled) areas like this one in the northwest hills of Morris County, about 33 miles from Manhattan. Billed as “femme empowerment,� such at-home pole dancing lessons are taking place in the realm of book clubs, with mothers — and grandmothers — learning slinky moves for girls’ nights in, bachelorette send-offs, even the occasional 60th birthday celebration.

The pole craze? Has mainstream culture embraced strippers in the name of "femme empowerment"?

Some say exercise that echoes the acrobatics done by women who take their clothes off for a living is exploitative rather than empowering. But Ms. Shteir and Joan Price, the author of “Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty� (Seal Press, 2006), see a clear difference between middle-class, middle-aged women choosing to give parties in their homes and women pushed by poverty into potentially dangerous or demeaning work.

Yeah I didn't think so. It is OK to pole dance if you are a suburban housewife, in fact it is even empowering! But if you do it for a living you are engaging in nasty, demeaning work that is dangerous (and well they may not say it but, you are also a bad person, who is slutty and probably doesn't even deserve basic human rights).

It just seems so hypocritical.

via NYTimes.

Some of the women who run Casa Atabex Ache.

Daynara Marte has been executive director of the “House of Womyn Power� Casa Atabex Ache in the South Bronx of New York for four years. She came to Casa in 1999 as an intern and has stayed and moved up in the organization ever since.

"Casa" in Spanish means house. "Atabex" is one of the many names for the Taino goddess or earth mother of Puerto Rico. Taino are the indigenous people of Puerto Rico, and other islands in the Caribbean. "Ache" means power in Yoruba, the language of a West African ethnic group.

Between 30 to 65 young women learn about self empowerment through cultural and indigenous rituals, spirituality, and social justice at Casa Atabex Ache at any given time. Currently, Dayanara is working on outreaching to the large Mexican immigrant community living in the South Bronx. Many fear entering community establishments and being asked for their immigration papers.

Here’s Dayanara…

Check out this disturbing Indian commercial for Fair & Lovely skin whitener (made by Unilever, which also manufactures Dove's "real beauty" products... and Axe). Here's a synopsis:

One TV commercial aired in India (often referred to as the Air Hostess advertisement) “showed a young, dark-skinned girl’s father lamenting he had no son to provide for him, as his daughter’s salary was not high enough – the suggestion being that she could not get a better job or get married because of her dark skin. The girl then uses the cream [Fair & Lovely], becomes fairer, and gets a better-paid job as an air hostess – and makes her father happy�.

Sexism, classism and racism, tied up together in a neat little 60-second spot! A similar ad for a whitener made by Pond's -- also a Unilever brand -- drew criticism a few years ago:

"Those ads are incredible," says Malaysian social activist Cynthia Gabriel, referring to the Unilever ads. "Whitening creams are capitalizing on a market that's quite racist and biased toward people who are lighter."

Responded a Unilever rep:

"Our TV commercial was never intended to suggest any correlation between skin color and beauty. We leave that to each individual to interpret according to his or her culture, background and education."

High-end whiteners are also sold by Chanel and Shiseido in the U.S. But they're huge in countries like China, India and Malaysia, where they help perpetuate the idea that whiter skin = more respect = success in life. They also pose health risks.

As Salon points out, the popularity of Fair & Lovely (the best-selling whitening cream in the world) provides fodder for a debate about whether marketing to lower-income populations helps or hurts them.

Not surprisingly, [manufacturer] HLL claims Fair & Lovely is doing good by fulfilling a social need. They argue that 90 percent of Indian women want to use whiteners because it is “aspirational…. A fair skin is like education, regarded as a social and economic step up� (Luce and Merchant, 2003).

But Fair & Lovely isn't a step up or solution; it only enforces the prejudices that contribute to economic and social inequality.

Via Nerve.